


Girl's Best Friend

by JoleneTheMoon



Series: Fast and Loose [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Beginning of a thing, Different Beginning, First Meetings, Friendship, Gen, Maybe - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-04-21 11:12:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14283660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoleneTheMoon/pseuds/JoleneTheMoon
Summary: What if Sakura's first friend at the academy was Kiba instead of Ino?





	Girl's Best Friend

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Puppy Love](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14083845) by [Dovey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dovey/pseuds/Dovey). 



> I've been struck by inspiration and have decided to try writing a few drabbles here and there in a bit of an A/U style. The canon is just so terribly dramatic and over-the-top and I really enjoy all of the fanfics out there for A/Us and Dovey's "Puppy Love" story was just so cute, I had to follow the rabbit trail!

Just this morning Sakura had been terribly excited to begin at the academy, but now it seemed like her hopes had been for nothing.

_I just don’t get it. Why does no one like me? And is my forehead really that big?_ Sakura mournfully thought while sobbing into her knees.

 

She had barely managed to sit through the first half of the school day before rushing off to the park that was located at the edge of Konoha and collapsing at the base of one of the Hashirama trees near its outskirts.

 

Her day had begun perfectly well, she’d gotten dressed in her new Haruno clan patterned qipao, collected all of her shiny new school supplies, and arrived on time to the academy and had managed to find her correct home room and everything.

 

But it had all quickly fallen apart.

 

A nasty brunette girl named Ami had shoved Sakura’s belongings off of the desk she’d chosen at the front of the room.

 

“Didn’t you know? Big forehead _freaks_ like you sit at the back of the room. No one wants to see you Forehead Girl.” Ami had sneered into Sakura’s face. Sakura had just managed to keep the tears contained as she hurriedly picked up her items and scrambled to sit in the back corner.

 

Sakura had then spent the rest of the morning avoiding eye contact and determinedly staring at her notes or the teacher’s handwriting on the chalkboard. She thought it would be okay, but then lunchtime happened.

 

“Forehead girl! Forehead girl!”

 

A group of six girls, including that _witch_ Ami, had all taunted as one of them grabbed Sakura’s bento and dumped it out onto the ground. Sakura couldn’t even tell you which girl threw it as she’d been too busy staring at the ground and trying to desperately hold back her tears.

 

“Why are you even here? You can’t be a shinobi. Look at you – you’re just a big old crybaby!”

 

Sakura barely managed to retrieve her bento box as she pushed through the crowd and ran blindly towards the school gate. Her mother, Mebuki, would be so upset if she lost her new pink bento. Sakura didn’t even know why she even cared about a stupid bento box any more. She probably wouldn’t even use it again after this anyways.

 

After a few minutes of tearful running, Sakura had cleared her eyes enough to see and quickly decided to go to her favorite park.

 

As she sniffled and kept repeating her memories of the day over and over again in her mind, she continued to berate herself. _So stupid. Stupid! Maybe I shouldn’t be a shinobi. Maybe they’re right and I am just a stupid crybaby_.

 

Then a wet feeling on her shin.

 

Sakura’s head snapped up and she began wiping the tears and snot off her face with her hands.

 

“What? Oh, hey, where did you come from?” She sniffed out while looking at the small white puppy that was sitting by her feet. He woofed at her and began to wag his tail.

 

“At least you seem to like me, huh? You’re so cute too. Where’s your owner?” Sakura asked as she held out a hand for the puppy to sniff. He quickly began to lick at it and soon after allowed her to pet behind his ears. Sakura continued to coo at the tiny puppy and soon had him in her lap for cuddles.

 

It seemed like just a few minutes had passed before the bushes nearby rustled and a brunette head appeared.

 

“Akamaru! There you are! Why’d you go runnin’ off man?”

 

It was a boy. He looked terribly messy with sticks and leaves stuck in his unruly head of hair and with dirt and grass stains all over his clothing. The red triangles on his cheeks were about the only clean part of his face too.

 

“Did you really ditch me for a girl? I thought you liked dirt man!” The boy continued to lecture the small puppy while Sakura gaped at him.

 

“Oh, I’m sorry. Is he yours? I didn’t mean to bother him or anything.” Sakura managed to mumble out while holding the puppy out.

 

“Yeah he’s my partner! Name’s Kiba and that there’s Akamaru! And you’re not bothering nobody. Trust me – he’d really let you know if you did! He likes to piss all over mean people! It’s really funny!” Kiba shouted while collapsing on the grass next to her. He patted Akamaru on the head but didn’t take him from Sakura’s hands.

 

“My name’s Sakura. It’s nice to meet the two of you.” Sakura said while holding back giggles. _Akamaru pees on people? Oh am I glad he likes me!_ She was desperately hoping that Kiba would like her too and wouldn’t notice anything about her big forehead. Sakura was currently keeping her head down and pretending to be overly invested in petting Akamaru so that Kiba couldn’t see it.

 

Kiba chuckled and ruffled her hair. “Good to meetcha! What are you doin’ out here? Don’t you gotta be in school?”

 

“Uh… well I sort of left? It was lunchtime… and I just…” Sakura began to stumble over her words and hoped he wouldn’t ask anything else.

 

“Ah skipping right? Me too! I just got so bored and that room is all so closed up and gross. Why can’t we have classes outside? It’s so nice out here! And the room smells too. All the girls smell like flowery sweet crap and it clogs up our noses and it even made Akamaru here sneeze.”

 

Sakura began to realize that this boy was probably in one of the ninja clans, and she was pretty sure he might even be an Inuzuka due to the puppy’s presence and the red facial markings. She’d done a lot of reading in the library recently on Konoha’s history and Kiba was starting to check all of the pertinent boxes in her mental checklist.

 

“Is Akamaru a ninken? Are you an Inuzuka? I don’t mean to be rude… but you mentioned smells and stuff, and no one else seemed to notice…” Sakura was beginning to peek through her bangs at the boy. She was so curious but her mom had taught her not to be nosy. But he was just much more interesting than she’d originally thought! Well if she could just keep overlooking his messiness… And he hadn’t even said anything mean yet!

 

“Yeah! You heard of us? That’s awesome! We’re gonna be totally awesome ninja together! Akamaru is gonna be a total bad ass. Ya know… once he grows a bit. Right now he’s just super awesome at biting ankles and pissin’ on stuff.” Kiba rubbed the back of his neck and chuckled while Akamaru barked. “Oh, did I lie? That’s right I didn’t! You do pee on things a lot! Don’t even start that crap!”

 

Sakura continued to giggle and watch as Kiba and Akamaru began growling and barking at each other. Kiba had even gotten on all fours in the dirt and was facing Akamaru nose to nose.

 

“Uh, I should probably get back to school. I left all my school supplies behind and lunch break is probably over soon… Do you… Could we… maybe meet again?” Sakura managed to squeak out as she squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her fists tight.

 

“Sure! You’re nice to Akamaru and you don’t smell all crappy like the other girls. Uh, you don’t mind getting’ dirty, do you? Cause if not, we can totally go check out the river later! It’s just all muddy and I’ve heard girls bitchin’ a lot about that kind of stuff.”

 

“That sounds nice, I like rivers.” Sakura’s eyes were open and probably full of awe as she stared at her new friend. That was way easier than she’d expected it to be. Kiba may use a lot of bad words that her mom had told her not to, but otherwise he was just so nice to her. “So, I’ll see you here tomorrow? After school?”

 

“Yep! That works for me! See ya later Sakura-chan!”

 

Sakura could barely keep herself from squealing with joy as she waved and ran back towards the academy. Maybe today wasn’t so bad after all.


End file.
